James' World 2

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The Kosciuszko National Park is a 6,900-square-kilometre (2,700 sq mi) national park and contains mainland Australia’s highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, for which it is named, and Cabramurra the highest town in Australia. Its borders contain a mix of rugged mountains and wilderness, characterized by an alpine climate, which makes it popular with recreational skiers and bushwalkers.

The park is located in the southeastern corner of New South Wales, 354 km (220 mi) southwest of Sydney, and is contiguous with the Alpine National Park in Victoria to the south, and the Namadgi National Park in the Australian Capital Territory to the northeast. The larger towns of Cooma, Tumut, and Jindabyne lie just outside and service the park.

The waters of the Snowy River, the Murray River, the Murrumbidgee River, and the Gungarlin River all rise in this park.

Other notable peaks in the park include Gungartan, Mount Jagungal, Bimberi Peak, and Mount Townsend.

On 7 November 2008, the Park was added to the Australian National Heritage List as one of eleven areas constituting the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves.

Multiple Aboriginal groups in the southern part of NSW gathered in the Australian Alps Bioregion in the summer on an annual pilgrimage to the Bogong and Snowy Mountains. Here, the men participated in a feast of Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) that were found on the rocky outcrops of the mountains.

The area was explored by Europeans in 1835, and in 1840, Edmund Strzelecki ascended Mount Kosciuszko and re-named it after a Polish patriot and military leader Tadeusz Kościuszko. High-country stockmen followed, using the Snowy Mountains for grazing during the summer months. Banjo Paterson’s famous poem The Man From Snowy River recalls this era. The cattle graziers have left a legacy of mountain huts scattered across the area. Today these huts are maintained by the National Parks and Wildlife Service or volunteer organizations like the Kosciuszko Huts Association. In the 19th century, gold was mined on the high plains near Kiandra. At its height, this community had a population of about 4,000 people and ran 14 hotels. It was here that Skiing in Australia commenced around 1861. Since the last resident left in 1974, Kiandra has become a ghost town of ruins and abandoned diggings. In the 20th century, the focus of Skiing in New South Wales shifted south closer to the Kosciuszko Main Range. Wikipedia

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An image from Kosciuszko National Park

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Darjeeling is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located in the Lesser Himalayas at an elevation of 2,000 meters (6,560 ft). It is noted for its tea industry, its views of the world’s third-highest mountain Kangchenjunga, and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Darjeeling is the headquarters of the Darjeeling district which has a partially autonomous status called Gorkhaland Territorial Administration within the state of West Bengal. It is also a popular tourist destination in India.

The recorded history of the town starts from the early 19th century when the colonial administration under the British Raj set up a sanatorium and a military depot in the region. Subsequently, extensive tea plantations were established in the region and tea growers developed hybrids of black tea and created new fermentation techniques. The resultant distinctive Darjeeling tea is internationally recognized and ranks among the most popular black teas in the world. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway connects the town with the plains and has some of the few steam locomotives still in service in India.

Darjeeling has several British-style private schools, which attract pupils from all over India and a few neighboring countries. The varied culture of the town reflects its diverse demographic milieu comprising Lepcha, Khampa, Gorkha, Kirati, Newar, Sherpa, Bhutia, Bengali, and other mainland Indian ethnolinguistic groups. Darjeeling, alongside its neighboring town of Kalimpong, was the center of the Gorkhaland social movement in the 1980s and summer of 2017. Wikipedia

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An image from Darjeeling, West Bengal, India

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